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CHAPTER XIV – SANS’ MERCY
Despite Leslie’s denials, Elizabeth left her room only half convinced. Being as lost to honor as Leslie, she was also as shrewd. She made a vow to keep her own counsel thereafter. She knew herself to be as guilty as Dulcie. She hoped Leslie would never discover that. Leslie had promised that her name should not be mentioned in the matter. If brought to book by Leslie, Dulcie could not accuse her of circulating the stories intrusted to her without incriminating herself. Elizabeth felt quite safe on that score.
For two or three days after her call upon Leslie, she kept out of Dulcie’s way for fear the latter had been taken to task for her treachery and might suspect her as being instrumental in having brought it about. On Friday, however, she met Dulcie in the library. Dulcie invited her to dinner at the Colonial and she went without a tremor of conscience. The former was not in a gossiping humor that day. She was doing badly in all her subjects and worried in consequence.
Elizabeth went calmly to luncheon at the Lotus with Leslie on Saturday, pluming herself in that she was on excellent terms with both factions. She reported to Leslie her meeting with Dulcie on Friday, saying lamely that Dulcie never gossiped a bit about the Sans. “She hadn’t better,” Leslie had returned vengefully. “She has done mischief enough already.” When Elizabeth had ventured to inquire when Dulcie was to be “called down,” Leslie had said, “When I get ready to do it. I’m not ready yet.”
Natalie and Joan Myers had been informed by Leslie of Dulcie’s treachery. The trio had then set to work to discover how much damage she had done; something not easy to determine. Natalie and Joan demanded that she should be dropped from the club. They were sure the others would be of the same mind. Even Eleanor Ray, her former chum, was on the outs with Dulcie. There would be no objection to the penalty from Eleanor. Leslie’s plan was to gather the evidence against Dulcie, place it before the Sans, minus the culprit, at a private meeting, and let them decide her fate. In spite of Leslie Cairns’ unscrupulous disposition, she had a queer sense of justice which occasionally stirred within her. Thus she was bent on being sure of her ground before accusing Dulcie to her face.
After a week had passed and the three had learned nothing new regarding the circulation of their misdeeds about the campus, Leslie called a meeting of the club in her room while Dulcie was absent from the Hall. Indignation ran high at the revelation. The verdict was, “Drop her from the club.” Notwithstanding the possibility pointed out by Leslie that she might turn on them and betray them to headquarters, her associates were keen for dropping her.
“What harm can she do us?” argued Margaret Wayne. “She can’t give us away to Doctor Matthews without cooking her own goose. That’s our only danger from her. It’s our word against hers. Any stories she has told on the campus will never go further than among the students. It is too bad! Dulcie should have known better than to be so utterly treacherous. She deserves to be dropped. We could never trust her again.”
“That’s what I think,” concurred Joan Myers. “Even if her tales did bring about a private inquiry, it is our word against hers. We have really walked with a sword over our heads since last Saint Valentine’s night. It has never fallen. I say, simply fire Dulcie from the Sans, and be done with it. Let it be a lesson to the rest of us to be discreet.”
“When is the deed to be done?” Adelaide Forman inquired.
“I don’t know yet. I want you girls to see what you can glean on the campus. I must have every scrap of evidence against her that I can get,” Leslie announced. “We may not be able to spring it on her for a week or two. When we do, the meeting will be in this room. I’ll hang a heavy curtain over the door so we won’t be heard. If she gets very angry she will raise her voice to a positive shriek.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to hold that meeting outside the Hall? Dulcie will raise an awful fuss. If she hadn’t told something I made her swear she wouldn’t tell, I would not hear to having her treated that way. I am down on her for that very reason. Otherwise I would feel very sorry for her,” explained Eleanor Ray.
“I am not on good terms with her. She made trouble between Evangeline and me last week. We only straightened it up today.” Joan volunteered this information. “Leslie’s room is the best place for the meeting. It is situated so that Dulcie won’t be heard if she cries or flies into a temper.”
While among the Sans there was not one girl who had not stooped to dishonorable acts since her entrance into Hamilton College, the fact of Dulcie’s defection seemed monstrous indeed.
“Be careful what you say to Bess Walbert,” Natalie took the liberty of saying. “How much does she know about what we shall do with Dulc? What did you tell her about it?”
“I said I had heard other things Dulcie had been saying; that she was due to hear from me for gossiping. That such yarns must be stopped. I warned her to keep to herself whatever Dulc had told her. She promised silence. I don’t know.” Leslie shrugged dubiously. “Take a leaf from Nat’s book, girls, and keep mum to Bess. She may try to pump you. She’s crazy to know what I am going to say to Dulc and when the fuss is to come off.”
Natalie flushed her gratification of Leslie’s approbation. The others received their leader’s counsel with marked respect. The news of Dulcie’s perfidy had given them food for uneasy reflection.
“We’ll just have to depend on you, Les, to deal with Dulcie,” Joan Myers said emphatically. “You can do it scientifically. Of course, we expect to stand by you. When the time comes you ought to do the talking.”
“The firing, you mean,” corrected Leslie, smiling in her most unpleasant fashion. “Leave it to me. It’s our campus reputation against her feelings; if she has any. We all have a certain pride in ourselves as seniors. I’m not anxious to be looked down upon by the other classes. It is only a few months until Commencement. We must hang on until then, and at the same time keep up an appearance of senior dignity.”
An assenting murmur arose. Allowed to do as they pleased by doting or careless parents, not one of the Sans would escape parental wrath were she to fail in her college course. Even more serious consequences would be attached to expellment.
“How are we to behave toward Dulcie?” was Eleanor Ray’s question as the meeting broke up.
“As though nothing had happened,” Leslie directed. “I shall take her by surprise. I wish her to be so completely broken up she won’t have the nerve to fight back, either on the night of the fuss or afterward.”
CHAPTER XV – PLANNING FOR OTHERS
While the Sans were experiencing the discomfort of internal friction, the Lookouts and their friends were traveling the pleasant ways of harmony and peace. The sophomores had so thoroughly taken their freshman sisters under their genial wing that the juniors had little welfare work to do in that direction.
In the matter of basket ball they lost all active interest after the first game between the freshman and sophomore teams which took place on the first Saturday afternoon in November. The Sans still had friends enough among the seniors to make their influence felt in this respect. With two Sans elected to the sports committee, Professor Leonard had thrown up his hands in disgust after a vain attempt to get along pleasantly with the arrogant committee. He refused to be present at the try-out. Afterward he made it a point to be away from the gymnasium during team practice.
Leslie Cairns kept her word to Elizabeth Walbert to the letter. She was chosen by the committee to play on the official sophomore team. Phyllis Moore was also picked solely on account of her prowess. When she found herself on the same team with Elizabeth, she promptly resigned.
The freshman team was picked by the committee entirely according to Sans tactics. Therefore, the democratic element of Hamilton foresaw a series of uninteresting games ahead. Dutifully they attended the initial game of the season which the sophs won. Most of the applause came from the seniors present at the game. According to Muriel Harding, she had seen better games played by the grammar school children of Sanford.
Basket ball thus failing to arouse their marked enthusiasm, the former faithful fans and expert players turned their moments of recreation into channels which pleased them better. Incidental with the decline of basket ball, Marjorie and Robin took to looking earnestly about them for a motive for the entertainments they had discussed giving.
Marjorie scouted about diligently in an effort to locate students off the campus who needed financial help. She took Anna Towne into her confidence at last and found out something of interest.
“It isn’t half so much that most of the girls living off the campus can’t pull themselves through college. They manage to do it by working through the summer vacations. It is the way we have to live that is so nerve-racking at times. The food isn’t always good, and there’s so little variety if one boards. The girls who cook for themselves have to market. That’s a strain. One is out of bread or butter or another staple and forgets all about it until supper time. Then the small stores nearby are closed. Perhaps one wishes to spend an hour or two in the library after recitations. There is the marketing to do, or else it has to be done early in the morning when one is hurrying to get ready for a first recitation. That’s merely one of the difficulties attached to trying to lead the student life and doing light housekeeping at the same time.
“On the other hand,” Anna had further explained, “if one boards one isn’t always allowed to do one’s own laundering. That’s quite an item of expense. It costs more in money to board, and it is more of an expense of spirit to keep house on a small scale. It is a great irritation either way. That is the opinion of every girl off the campus I have talked with. You girls in your beautiful campus house are lucky. Many of these boarding and rooming houses are so cold in winter. For the amount of board or rental we pay the proprietors claim they can’t afford to give adequate heat.
“You see, Marjorie, when girls like myself decide on enrolling at a certain college, they have only the prospectus to go by. They read in the Bulletin of Students’ Aids and Bureaus of Self-help but they do not reckon on them. They go to college on their own resources. They wouldn’t dream of asking help as freshmen; perhaps not at all during their whole course.”
“I see,” Marjorie had assented very soberly. It hurt her to hear of the struggles for an education going on so near her, while she had everything and more than heart could desire. “There ought to be one or two houses on the campus where students could live as cheaply as in boarding and rooming houses and still have their time entirely for study and recreation.”
“That won’t be in my time at Hamilton,” Anna had declared with a tired little smile. “I hope it will happen some day.”
When Marjorie had left Anna, it was with a certain generous resolve. That night she made it known to Jerry.
“Do you know what I am going to do?” she asked, after recounting to her room-mate her conversation of the afternoon.
“I do not. I’ll be pleased to hear your remarks, whatever they may be,” encouraged Jerry with one of her wide smiles.
“You know what a lot of vacancies there will be here in June,” Marjorie began. “Those vacancies ought to be filled by off-the-campus girls. Take Anna, for instance. She earns about one-third enough money summers to keep her at Wayland Hall. I shall furnish the other two-thirds for her. I shall begin now and save something from my allowance toward it. I shall ask Captain not to buy me a lot of new clothes for next year, but to give me the money instead. I am going to do a little sacrificing. I shall cut out dinners and luncheons off the campus. I’ll go only to Baretti’s and not so very often.”
“We are an extravagant set,” Jerry confessed. “Our board is paid at the Hall; the very best board, too. Yet away we go every two or three days for a feed at our favorite tea-rooms. That’s a good idea, Marvelous Manager. I shall presently adopt an off-the-campusite myself. Ronny will adopt a dozen.”
“Ronny would finance them all, but I sha’n’t let her. General would give me the money to see Anna through college, but I don’t wish it to be that way. I want it to be self-denial money. I’d like to find a way to help the off-the-campus girls this year.”
“Give shows. Make money. Turn it over to ’em,” suggested Jerry, with an airy wave of the hand. “Nothing easier.”
“Nothing harder, you mean,” corrected Marjorie. “They wouldn’t like to accept it as a private gift, I’m afraid. Besides, some of them board; others do light housekeeping. Those who keep house could use the money we offered to make things easier. Still they’d have the strain of housework on their minds. Those who board wouldn’t be benefited much unless they changed boarding places. There is only that one collection of boarding houses near the campus. One is about the same as another. Hamilton has been a rich girls’ college for a long time. The fine equipment and super-excellent faculty have filled it up with well-to-do and moneyed students.”
“I’d like to see every Hamilton student on the campus,” declared Jerry heartily. “It would take three campus houses to do it. There must be close to seventy-five girls in that bunch of off-campus houses.”
“We could start our fund for that purpose,” was the hopeful response.
“Who’d take care of the plan after we were graduated? It would take a lot of money to build campus houses. Besides, how would we get the site? Maybe the Board wouldn’t hear to the project”
“Too true, too true, Jeremiah,” Marjorie conceded gayly. “That plan is a little far-fetched just yet. Later it may seem feasible. The fact remains that Robin and I yearn to get up a show; object to give away the proceeds.”
“You can do this. Arrange for the show. Advertise it as being given for the purpose of founding a students’ beneficiary association. Take a third of the proceeds and start the society. Give the other two-thirds to Anna and let her distribute it privately among the girls who need it. She knows them. She can get away with it better than you can. If anyone comes down on the treasury for our little lone third we can hand it out and keep it up by private contributions until some more money is earned. I suppose you two marvelous managers will continue in the show business as long as it is profitable.”
“Your head is level, Jeremiah,” laughed Marjorie, her eyes sparkling. “That’s a good plan. I’ll see Robin tomorrow, and Anna too. Robin can begin to gather up the performers. Anna can find out for me as to how her flock are situated. I shall call the girls in tomorrow evening and ask them if they each would like to finance a student next year. Leila, Vera and Helen will like to, even if they have been graduated from Hamilton. Kathie can’t, but she will wish to help in some other way.”
“Anna Towne was my freshie catch. You may have her. I’ll scout around and find someone else,” magnanimously accorded Jerry.
Marjorie spent her leisure hours during the ensuing few days in interviewing her friends and helping Robin plan the show. With Thanksgiving only ten days off, the show would not take place until after that holiday. The girls tackled the programme, however, and completed it within three days.
Ronny was to dance twice. Marjorie had written to Constance Stevens, who had promised to sing at the revue. These two numbers were to be the features. The Silverton Hall orchestra would contribute two numbers. Leila and Vera had promised an ancient Irish contra dance in costume. Phyllis would give a violin solo. Blanche Scott would offer a grand opera selection in her best baritone voice. Ronny agreed to train eight girls in a singing and dancing number. As a wind-up, four Acasia House girls were to put on a one-act French play.
Busy with her new project, Marjorie had not forgotten Miss Susanna. The day after her visit to Hamilton Arms she had written the old lady one of her sincere, friendly notes. She had not expected a reply. Nevertheless, Miss Hamilton had returned a few lines of acknowledgment. Since then the wires of communication between them had been idle.
Marjorie regretted this. She would have liked, during the beautiful autumn weather, to walk about the grounds of Hamilton Arms with its owner. With the last leaves off the trees and the earth frost-bitten, she began to feel that Miss Susanna had not desired her further acquaintance. In passing Hamilton Arms she strained her eyes, invariably, for a sight of the old lady. She saw her but once, and at a distance.
She wondered as Thanksgiving approached what kind of Thanksgiving Miss Hamilton would have. She resolved, before leaving college for home, to write the last of the Hamiltons as cheerful a note as she could compose.
Three days before college closed for the holiday she found a letter in the Hall bulletin board in Miss Susanna’s handwriting. This letter bore the address “Wayland Hall,” and read:
“Dear Child:
“I have a curiosity to meet some of the young women you exalted to me when you took tea at the Arms. Will you bring them with you to five o’clock tea tomorrow afternoon? I had intended writing you before this date, but have been ill and out of sorts. I believe you mentioned eight young women as your particular friends. I can entertain you and the beloved eight, but no more. Do not trouble to answer this note. I shall expect to see you, even if the others can’t come to tea.
“Yours sincerely,“Susanna Craig Hamilton.”
Marjorie uttered a kind of exultant crow and performed a funny little dance of jubilation about the room. Jerry had not yet come from recitations, so she hurried out to find the other Lookouts. Ronny was the only one in. She rejoiced with Marjorie, her interest in Hamilton Arms and its owner being second only to that of her chum.
“She loves flowers. We must take her a big box of roses,” was Marjorie’s generous thought. “Pink, white and red ones; yellow roses, too, if we can find them. It is hard to find a certain kind of fragrant, very double yellow rose at the florist’s now.”
“You mean ‘Perle de Jaddin,’” Ronny said quickly. “We have acres of them at ‘Manana.’ They are my favorite rose.”
“I love them, too,” Marjorie nodded. “I remember that name now. I will collect two dollars apiece from the girls. Two times nine are eighteen. We ought to be able to buy an armful of roses for eighteen dollars. I’ll ask Leila to drive to Hamilton for them. She has no class the last hour. I think we had better walk to Hamilton Arms. Miss Susanna seems to be rather down on girls who drive cars. So there is no use in flaunting her dislike in her face. I may be in error on that point. She made a remark on the day I met her that led me to think so.”
“You go and find the other girls. I’ll tell Lucy as soon as she comes in,” Ronny offered. “The sooner you see them, the better. If they have engagements for tomorrow afternoon they will have to gracefully slide out of them. We all must accept Miss Susanna’s invitation. It is a case of now or never.”
Marjorie left Ronny to go joyfully on her pleasant errand. Her second quest was more successful. Leila and Vera had returned while she was in Ronny’s room. Both were elated over the unexpected honor. Leila was more than willing to make the trip to the florist’s shop. Marjorie met Katherine in the hall just as she was leaving Leila’s room.
The trio of absentees, Helen, Muriel and Jerry, she decided must be out somewhere together. She smiled to herself as she pictured Jerry’s face when she heard the news. “Just because I am in a hurry to tell Jerry she will probably go to dinner off the campus and come marching in about nine o’clock,” was her half-vexed rumination.
To her satisfaction Jerry walked into the room at ten minutes to six. She and Helen had taken a ride in the latter’s car. Jerry was full of mirth over the fact that they had met Elizabeth Walbert’s car at the side of the road with a blown-out tire. A mechanician from a Hamilton garage was on the scene adjusting a new one under the verbose direction of the owner.
“Helen drove her car past at a crawl. We wanted to hear what she was saying to the man from the garage. Honestly, we could hear her voice before we came very near her. She shrieks at the top of her lungs. She was trying to tell him what to do. He wasn’t paying any more attention to her than if she hadn’t been there. That blond freshie, who snubbed Phil the day she tried to help her at the station, was with her. I heard her say, ‘My, but he is slow. Our chauffeur could have put on three tires while he was thinking about putting on one.’ So encouraging to the workman!” Jerry’s tones registered gleeful sarcasm. “I wish she had been stuck there for about four hours.”
“You should not rejoice at the downfall of others,” Marjorie reproved with a giggle. “That is, if you can class a bursted tire as a downfall.”
“It did me a world of good to see those two little snips stuck at the side of the road,” returned Jerry. “That Walbert girl and her car are a joke. I wish we had a college paper. I’d write her up. Funny there isn’t one at Hamilton. Almost every other college has one, sometimes two. I think I shall start one next year, if I’m not too busy.”
“You might call it ‘Jeremiah’s Journal,’” suggested Marjorie. Both girls laughed at this conceit. Marjorie then acquainted her room-mate with the invitation, at the same time handing her Miss Hamilton’s note.
“Will wonders never cease!” Jerry laid down the note and beamed at Marjorie. “All your fault, Marvelous Manager. You went ahead and paved the way into Miss Susanna’s good graces for the rest of us. You certainly do get on the soft side of people without trying.”
“Not a bit of it,” Marjorie stoutly contested. “Any one of you girls would have done as I did and with the same results. I am so glad you are all going to meet her. She can’t help but have a better opinion of our dear old Alma Mater after she has met some of her nicest children. I guess that basket handle broke at the psychological moment.”
